


Fixer Upper

by ForensicSpider98



Series: Love After the Fact [14]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, All this stress is bad for the baby, Altean Adam (Voltron), Altean Prince Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Aromantic Asexual Pidge | Katie Holt, Balmeran Hunk (Voltron), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Galra Shiro (Voltron), Galran Prince Keith (Voltron), Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, Multi, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Olkari Pidge | Katie Holt, Post-War, it's keith. keith is the baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23068303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForensicSpider98/pseuds/ForensicSpider98
Summary: Lance... kinda sucks at stuff. Keith kinda sucks at different stuff.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Alfor/Coran (Voltron), Allura/Lotor/Romelle (Voltron), Haggar/Zarkon (Voltron), Hunk & Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Love After the Fact [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635043
Comments: 19
Kudos: 271





	Fixer Upper

“Focus, your Majesty. Remember your basics. If this were a living being, where must the quintessence flow?” Tavo stands just behind Lance, trying to get the prince to find some measure of success. They've been working on it for hours now, and though Lance's skills haven't gotten any worse, they haven't improved, either.

Keith’s starting to wonder if his spouse might ever be good at _anything_ other than the people stuff. Which, if he’s not, Keith can handle the weapons and Lance can take the people. It’ll be more than a fair exchange. He'll crack heads and split people open, and Lance can be charming and look pretty. It will play to both of their strengths.

Keith misses combat training almost as much as he misses his family.

It's just so odd how chaotic Lance's skills and weaknesses are. He's either deplorable or beyond reproach. He’s not a good swordsman (though he _claims_ to be an excellent marksman), and it seems he’s not a good alchemist either. He’s an excellent physik, however. Lance can cure a migraine like no one else. Keith thinks he knows why-

“To where the damage is deepest,” Lance murmurs, leaning over the training mannequin.

“Good. Reach deep.” Lance closes his eyes, concentrating. Light blooms between the long brown fingers splayed over the false wound, glowing from underneath the soft scales on his cheeks. And… the quintessence backfires, throwing Lance and Tavo back from the table and onto the ground.

Tavo lays his head back on the floor with a tiny sigh. Keith's surprised at the dark-skinned Altean's seeming unlimited patience and good nature.

“I’m sorry, Tavo. Please, I’m sorry. Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine, your Majesty.” Which is good, in Keith’s opinion, because there’s no way his spouse would have been able to help the man. Lance leaps to his feet, disentangling himself from his cloak and helping his teacher.

“I’m sorry.” Lance’s hands hang limp at his sides, eyes downcast. “I don’t understand what the problem is.”

“Your Majesty, your problem is this: you overthink. You overthink with your sword and with your alchemy. You overthink your relationships with your family, your spouse, your people, and with Daibazaal. You overthink what clothes you put on, what side of the bed you sleep on, what color flowers to put in your little garden, when to brush your teeth, what to eat for breakfast, and why you have a sudden pain in your head.” The alchemist guides his pupil back to the mannequin. He places Lance’s hands on it’s chest, where the ‘wound’ was marked out in red chalk.

“Quintessence is not just something you push out of yourself. Quintessence is _life,_ in its purest form. When you reach within yourself, push your own life from your center into something else, you are entangling that which makes you reality with the reality that makes another. Whatever you hold, it must become a part of you, an extension of who and what you are. You tether you and that other together permanently. Only then can you seek to reach out and touch it, let alone alter it.

“Once that is done, you become part of that other forever. And they become a part of you.”

 _“What if I reach too far?”_ Lance whispers. _“What if I get stuck or lost and can’t come back?”_

_“You must find what anchors you.”_

_“What anchors me?”_

_“Yes. Your singular purpose. For me, it is my wife, Luca. As a boy, I confess it was my pet shreika, Rolu.”_

Lance wilts. _“I don’t have a singular purpose. I have too many. I must be a good spouse, a good prince, a good ally, a good leader, a good warrior, a good alchemist, and a good friend all at once.”_

 _“You must choose one thing. One thing that you live by above all the others.”_

Lance heaves a sigh and shakes his head. Tavo could never understand. He doesn’t understand what a burden Lance carries. Keith’s only just beginning to understand as he gradually begins to shoulder more of Lance’s duties.

Back at the edge of the room, Keith pretends to read as he eavesdrops on a conversation he’s not meant to hear. Lance knows he speaks Altean, but also knows that a second language can still be tricky, especially when whispered under breath. Thank the stars for Keith’s keen ears.

 _“Your father, King Alfor does it. King Coran does, in his own little way. And you can too. You simply must find it. The center of all centers. The thing that means all of those other things.”_ Lance makes no response. _“We’ll call it a day. Let’s try again not tomorrow, but the day after. After that explosion, you are more tired than you think.”_

Lance nods, walking past Keith on his way to leave. 

Keith closes his datapad, follows suit, not hesitating.

The Altean looks so downcast, ears drooping, scales dull, shoulders slumped. Keith feels a twinge in his heart. It doesn’t seem right. The white-haired prince should be smiling, or at least standing strong. It bothers Keith.

He decides, after some hesitation, to try to make it better.

“You’ll get there, Lance. Don't worry.”

“I should have gotten there already. Allura got there when we were children. And do you wanna know the stupid part?” Keith has no idea how to respond to that. “I apparently have a higher alchemical reactivity than she does. I’m a more powerful alchemist! And yet I can’t heal a mannequin.”

“To be fair,” Keith begins, trying for a bit of humor, “The mannequin appeared beyond healing anyway. Doomed from the beginning, if you ask me.”

Lance stops in his tracks.

“Did you just try to make a joke?” the Altean asks. 

Keith scowls, ears flicking back against his head. “Well, you just looked so pathetic and- Hey! What do you mean _try_?” Lance grins. “Oh shut up! You Alteans goof off a lot and it rubs off, alright?! Galra are a lot more serious. I just meant to- Nevermind."

“Thank you, Keith.” Keith folds his arms, looking away. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better. Even if you’re terrible at it.”

Lance leans over and presses a kiss to Keith’s cheek. Unsolicited. With no one around. It makes his ears flutter and his tail curl.

“Whatever.” Like it’s nothing. Like Keith doesn’t care.

But he does care, because his moderate embarrassment of a spouse is now smiling a little, walking with something like a spring in his step. And maybe, just maybe, Keith likes that he’d been able to do that.

**Author's Note:**

> Next time on Love After the Fact: Lance has a talk with his father.


End file.
